r they are not the works of their seemingly extinct
progenitors?--of that people of the same race, (but more directly allied
to the Toltecans of Mexico,) who appear in former times to have
constituted populous and cultivated communities throughout the valley of
the Mississippi, and in the southern and western regions towards the
gulf of Mexico, and whose last direct and lineal representatives were
the ill-fated Natchez?

I have made much inquiry as to the localities of these and analogous
remains, but hitherto with little success. I am assured that they have
been found in Missouri, perhaps near St. Louis; and in very rare
instances in the northern part of Delaware. Dr. Ruggles has sent me the
plaster model of a small, perforated, but irregularly formed stone of
this kind, taken from an ancient Indian grave at Fall River in Rhode
Island; but Dr. Edwin H. Davis, of Chilicothe, in a letter recently
received from him, informs me that he had obtained, during his
excavations in that vicinity, no less than "two hundred flint disks in a
single mound, measuring from three and a half to five inches in
diameter, and from half an inch to an inch in thickness, of three
different forms, round, oval and triangular." These appear, however, to
be of a different construction and designed for some other use than
those I have described; and Dr. Davis himself offers the probable
suggestion, that "they were rude darts blocked out at the quarries for
easy transportation to the Indian towns." The same gentleman speaks of
having found other disks formed of a micaceous slate, of a dark color
and highly polished. These last appear to correspond more nearly to
those we have indicated in the above diagrams.

Besides these disks, I have met with a few spheroidal stones, about
three inches in diameter. One of these accompanies the disks from South
Carolina, and is marked with a groove to receive the thumb in throwing
it. A similar but ruder ball is contained among the articles found by
Mr. Atwater in the mound near Huron, Ohio.

What was the use of the disks in question? Those who have examined the
series in my possession have offered various explanations; but the only
one that seems in any degree plausible, is that of my friend Dr.
Blanding, who supposes them to have been used in a game analogous to
that of the quoits of the Europeans. It is a curious fact that discoidal
stones much resembling these have been found in Scandinavia;[17-*]
whence I